Online communities, created and sustained by people sharing and discussing texts on the internet, play an increasingly important role in social health movements. In this essay, we explore a collective mobilization in miniature through an in-depth analysis of two satiric texts from an online community for people with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). By blending a sociological analysis with a rhetorical exploration of these texts, our aim is to grasp the discursive generation of a social movement online community set up by sufferers themselves to negotiate and contest the dominating biomedical perception of their condition.

‘Chronic fatigue syndrome’ (CFS) and ‘myalgic encephalomyelitis’ (ME) are diagnostic labels that are at the center of ongoing conflicts in the field of health and illness, between doctors, patients, activists, and other interest groups. ‘CFS’ and ‘ME’ have different historical trajectories and are associated with different diagnostic criteria. In many cases, however, they are used interchangeably or synonymously with the umbrella term ‘ME/CFS’. This worsens preexisting conflicts and causes new ones, partly by effecting a confusing array of interpretive possibilities for patients new to the diagnoses and the issues at hand.

After decades of activism, theorization, and model building, disability remains an undesirable marker of individual identity. Under-reporting of disability on a global scale is at least partly attributable to the stigma attached to disabled identity. Another cause, however, may be the lack of fit between the concept and discourse of disability as they evolve in a political, legislative, and organizational context, and the discourse in which everyday experiences as a disabled person are treated. The article examines discourse about myalgic encephalopathy and chronic fatigue syndrome from the Norwegian public sphere, and discusses the relationship between disability, chronic illness, and identity.

In recent years, the philosopher Julia Kristeva has entered the field of disability, both in her academic capacity and as an adviser to the French government on policy and legislative issues. This is not only an indication of Kristeva's evolving research interests, but also a symptom of disability's increasingly prominent status as a topic of interdisciplinary inquiry. This article undertakes an examination of Kristeva's approach to disability, and of its implications. Kristeva's approach draws strongly on her philosophical and psychoanalytic background, and aims to bring the disabled and non-disabled closer together, ending the marginalization and isolation of people with disabilities. Rhetorical analysis of one of Kristeva's programmatic articles, ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and… Vulnerability’ however, shows that Kristeva's approach to disability reifies the very conceptual divides and experiential dichotomies she attempts to transcend. Disability is represented as essentially catastrophic and essentially tied to pain and isolation. This approach ultimately worsens rather than improves the grounds for social change.

Disability is a historically, culturally, and sociopolitically variable phenomenon, dependent for its form and meaning not only on individual bodies, but on structural conditions and forces. Disability discourse is the collective term for ways of signifying disability from different perspectives, and for the linguistic acts that constitute disability as in its relationship to multiple domains of social practice. This article identifies key elements in current disability discourse, and the historical and intellectual forces that shaped it.

This thesis is an investigation into the current meaning of disability and of some forms of contemporary disability discourse. The chief provider of data for the study is the Norwegian Federation of Organizations of Disabled People (FFO), a non-governmental organization that acts as a sociopolitical umbrella for its primarily medico-diagnostic member organizations. The research questions originate in tensions that are inherent in FFO’s structure and role: How do medical, social, and political discourses shape the current meaning of disability? How is the meaning of disability produced in and by texts? The thesis’s four research articles provide four different points of entry for exploring these questions. Article I, "Critical discourse analysis, topoi and mystification: Disability policy documents from a Norwegian NGO", is a close reading of FFO’s programmatic documents, its bylaws and a selection of consultative statements. Article II, "Is there something wrong with society, or is it just me? Social and medical knowledge in a Norwegian anti-discrimination law", deals with a 2009 piece of legislation which integrates the anti-discrimination perspective with traditional welfare state mechanisms. Article III, "False Dichotomies of Disability Politics: Theory and Practice in the Discourse of Norwegian NGO Professionals”, explores the relationship between disability theory as perceived in academe and in the FFO system. Article IV, "Disability and discourse analysis: Some topics and issues", surveys disability studies literature and critically examines some of the major disputes between different theories and models of disability. In sum, the interaction between and the interdependence of the social and medical models suggest that the prevailing notion of a conflict between the two is inaccurate. A more nuanced understanding of both models will be both more accurate and more useful in furthering descriptive precision of disability as a social phenomenon and better communication between language users in the disability field.

Grue, Jan (2012). Språket som samler og splitter.

Grue, Jan (2012). The ME/CFS movement in Norway as an embodied health movement: A discourse perspective.